For some companies, like Lehman Brothers, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing amounts to death. Their valuable assets are sold off and the rotting carcass is left to be disposed of by a trustee. For others, like General Motors or CIT Group, bankruptcy is more like a carwash, a chance to clean off the dirt and grime of toxic assets

and emerge fresh for another crack at corporate life.

The Great Recession, triggered when the subprime mortgage market collapsed and pricked the housing bubble, sparked a wave of bankruptcies, including some bigger than U.S. courts had ever seen. These are the biggest since the December 2007 start of the recession – according to the National Bureau of Economic Research – and where they, or their remnants, are today. (All data courtesy ofBankruptcydata.com.)

Lehman Brothers

Filing date: 9/15/08

Assets: $691.1 billion

Coming up on the three-year anniversary of its filing, Lehman’s best U.S. assets are now part of Barclays Capital, while Nomura also snapped up some of its businesses and BlackRock wound up acquiring its iShares ETF unit. Its collapse was the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Washington Mutual

Filing date: 09/26/08

Assets: $327.9 billion

The largest bank failure in U.S. history, WaMu’s $188 billion in deposits were seized by the FDIC, which sold all the company’s assets and liabilities to JPMorgan Chase for just $1.9 billion.

General Motors

Filing date: 06/01/09

Assets: $91 billion

Kept alive thanks to government bailout loans, the automaker left its worst assets with “Old GM” and returned to the public markets with a November 2010 offering. Treasury Department still owns 32% stake.

CIT Group

Filing date: 11/01/09

Assets: $80.4 billion

Back on the market in a cleaner form after a prepackaged bankruptcy, now under the leadership of former Merrill Lynch and NYSE CEO John Thain. Still restructuring in an effort to cleanse balance sheet of bad loans and lower its cost of capital.

Chrysler

Filing date: 04/30/09

Assets: $39.3 billion

Pushed into bankruptcy by the Obama Administration, which then enlisted Fiat and Sergio Marchionne to be partners in the effort to revive the car company. Treasury sold the last of its stake to Fiat at a loss in July.

Thornburg Mortgage

Filing date: 05/01/09

Assets: $36.5 billion

Changed its name to TMST, but still in bankruptcy proceedings. Transferred servicing of its mortgage loans to Select Portfolio Servicing in June 2010.

General Growth Properties

Filing date: 04/16/09

Assets: $29.6 billion

GGP emerged from bankruptcy in November 2009 and still operates a portfolio of regional shopping centers and malls as it did prior to its Chapter 11 filing. The company doesn’t look exactly the same though, having spun out master planned communities and other development properties into publicly-traded Howard Hughes Corp.

Lyondell Chemical

Filing date: 01/06/09

Assets: $27.4 billion

Filed after 2007 merger with Basell, then emerged from bankruptcy in 2010 with a deleveraged balance sheet and a new lease on life.

Colonial BancGroup

Filing date: 08/25/09

Assets: $25.8 billion

After a planned investment from Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage fell through (that firm itself went bankrupt), the FDIC seized the company’s banking operations and sold the bulk of the assets to BB&T.

Capmark Financial Group

Filing date: 10/25/09

Assets: $20.6 billion

Capmark filed a reorganization plan in April 2011, which aims to have the company out of Chapter 11 by year end, and has sold off businesses like its real estate equity investment advisor and North American loan origination and servicing.

Ambac Financial Group

Filing date: 11/08/10

Assets: $18.9 billion

Recently extended a deadline for consideration of its restructuring plan by Wisconsin’s insurance regulator and Ambac Assurance to August 25. The regulators took over the bond insurer’s main subsidiary in March 2010 amid concerns that paying out claims tied to risky mortgage securities would drain its capital.

Guaranty Financial Group

Filing date: 08/27/09

Assets: $16.8 billion

Closed by the FDIC, Guaranty Financial’s deposits and assets were sold to BBVA Compass.

BankUnited Financial

Filing date: 05/21/09

Assets: $15 billion

Assets were sold to a new BankUnited, with former North Fork chief John Kanas at the helm, which went public in January.

Charter Communications

Filing date: 03/27/09

Assets: $13.9 billion

Cut its debt burden by 40%, emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and re-listed on the Nasdaq. Was largely controlled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen until converting the billionaire’s supervoting shares into common stock in early 2011.

Tribune Company

Filing date: 12/08/08

Assets: $13.1 billion

Taken private by billionaire Sam Zell in 2007, newspaper publisher teetered into bankruptcy less than a year later and wound up selling off assets like the Chicago Cubs. Two years later battling creditors are still tied up in court.

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